Grande & Michigan Palace: Stooges venues are crumbling.

Any Stooges fan will have a special place for The Grande Ballroom and the Michigan Palace in their hearts. The grande was the scene of their public debut in January 1968; the Michigan Palace was famously the venue where Metallic KO was recorded, when an audience high on THC and Jack Daniels threw coins, cameras and Stroh's bottles at a band, and singer, who were obviously at the end of their tether.

Both venues are now derelict. The roof is failing on the Grande, which only a few years ago still looked fairly sound. A couple more years and it will be irretrievable.

The Michigan Palace was formerly known as the Michigan Theater. It was built in 1926, on a site where Henry Ford built his first 'quadricycle'. The Michigan Theater was one of the most luxurious cinemas in the USA, built in French Renaissance Revival style with ornate plaster ceiling and classical pilasters.

IN subsequent years, the Theater played host to many of the countries leading dance bands, including Benny Goodman (whose young guitarist, Charlie Christian, was the first pioneer of electric guitar), and other acts like Bob Hope and the Marx brothers. By the time the Stooges last played there in February 1974 it was already motheaten and neglected. Now it's been converted into a indoor parking lot; all the fixtures and fittings have suffered over the years, and now one of the main arches has been filled in with ash blocks.

Much as I love the country, as my girlfriend said when she saw the photos, "only in america!".

Here's the Grande:



And the Michigan Palace; the balcony you can see is a new floor, added to make this a multistory parking lot:


Link with more photos:
http://www.trynka.net/Site/Grande.html

And this page has a link to fabulous photos of the Michigan Theater in its heyday: click on the words "Marx Brothers and Bob Hope"

http://www.trynka.net/Site/Open_Up_Blog/F0AE8381-6947-4D58-B39E-237C1B097BC5.html

(sorry if this is a double post, I thought this deserved its own thread...)

What a terrible shame. Imagine sticking in extra floors for parking into what was clearly a very grand building! Who allowed that?
It's always so sad to see once great buildings (from any age) fall into such neglected disrepair. Seems like a lot of Detroit is going that way.
Is it just lack of city funds that's causing such decay?
Cheers,
Richard

The short answer is yes. The city is out of cash, now that so many residents and industries have moved away. The attempts at regeneration seem to have stalled; that said, there are people who live there who still reckon the city's fucked up, but it works.

I've traveled around lots of run-down US cities, but Detroit is unique, there's nowhere else that exhibits such grandeur alongside... nothing. Huge churches, impressive libraries, and behind them the odd derelict apartment building.

I went for a walk with a PR for the main library and he told me how they have libraries in the outskirts where you walk out of the door, and the whole area is empty. But people still travel there becuase they need internet access... without it you're a non-person. Via some constitional quirk, libraries can levy their own taxes, independent of city government, so they at least can keep going.

It's sad...




By the way, has anyone here tried Google Street view? It's amazing, THis really gives you a sense of what the area's like, you can literally walk around the building. Just click on 'Street View'.


http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Zjk&q=8952%20Grand%20RIver%20Avenue&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

so are these buildings - the Grande in particular I'm interested in - just going to be left to crumble away? or will they demolish the whole lot?

I keep on telling myself I simply have got to go and see the Grande before they do pull it down or something. Altho that doesn't seem a possibility yet and from what you're saying Paul very soon it'll probably be too late??
a while back I came across quite a few photos (a grand tour) on this website with the fantastic title 'The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit'. Very apt.

Read 'em and weep:
http://www.thegrandeballroom.com/FOG_Public.html

http://www.detroitfunk.com/2006/10/grande_ballroom.html

The Friends of the Grande do seem to think there's a chance of Church Hill Ministries renovating the building, especially if they can get historic grants.

But if, as suggested, they have bought the building, keeping it waterproof would be a lot less expensive than renovating it, and they don't seem to have expended much effort on the former.

DO check out that street view linked above, it's fascinating, you can walk right around the building, it's like being there!

Great link Paul ........ I walked all around the neighborhood

Such a historic place; it's a damn shame!!!!!

Thanks for the info, Paul.

Sad!

I've been in the Grande a bunch of times over the past decade. In my opinion, it's cooked. Very sad.
I posted 2 folders of pictures I took at the Grande (and some I didn't) at the Mc5 '67 yahoo board.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/MC5_1967/

Check out this feature on Detroit, it's fascinating, and tragic. Much of the city's heritage is crumbling. The photos are lovely, too, a good idea to go and shoot them all in the snow:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/07/05/sm_america05.xml

What a sad story.
But what superb photos of those neglected and abandoned buildings.
It's amazing to think that such decay is occurring in what is often assumed to be an affluent society. Just goes to show that the American Dream is failing so many people.

Richard

Excellent article. Thanks Paul.

Check out this Youtube video of the Michigan Theater (Palace):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ-dw5izGVQ

It's so sad, this place had some of the greatest shows of my (de)formative years!

i've just added a couple more photos - including Bowie at the Palace in 74 - just a few months after the Stooges' last stand - plus an interior shot of photographer RObert Matheu on the stairway...

http://www.trynka.net/Site/Open_Up_Blog/2A035F32-CEC8-499A-BCEA-28C0B6B56418.html

As ever, if you ain't checked out the site before, do have a look around. And, by the way, if ever there's anyone you want to read more about, or any interview transcripts you want to read, email me care of the site. It's fiarly dormant now the book is out and finished, but it's great to get ideas for updates every now & then.